2007+Preface

Preface

The writings in this anthology are the creative expressions of the teacher participants, teacher consultants and instructors attending a summer writing institute sponsored by the South Central Kansas Writing Project (SCKWP) located at Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas. This local site is one of nearly 200 sites located at universities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U. S. Virgin Islands. Each university site partners with local schools to improve teacher writing and the teaching of writing in order to improve student writing and learning, in general. Buhler Public Schools hosted the SCKWP Summer Institute in 2007 and USD 259 East High School hosted a mini-institute in July, 2007.

The umbrella organization that provides funding, direction, structure, management, and encouragement for all of the 195 sites is the National Writing Project (NWP), which is a grant program of the Office of Innovation and Improvement (OII) of the U. S. Department of Education. OII makes strategic investments in innovative educational practices and is responsible for coordinating those provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) that address public school choice and supplemental educational services.

The NWP is the premier effort to improve writing and the teaching of writing in the United States of America. Through its professional development model, NWP builds the leadership, programs, and research needed for teachers to help their students become successful writers and learners. Summer institutes, advanced seminars, writing marathons, young writers camps, and professional development are some of the services offered by local sites to accomplish these goals.

A tenet of the National Writing Project is that every child deserves a highly skilled teacher of writing. Summer institutes across all nearly 200 sites are conducted to assist teachers in preparing for leadership roles by demonstrating their most effective practices studying research, and improving their knowledge of writing by writing themselves. The summer institute sponsored by Wichita State University’s South Central Kansas Writing Project is an intense immersion into the production of personal writing expression, the study of writing development, and the acquisition of ideas for teaching writing, K-12. This anthology completes the writing process sequence by publishing some of the creative written expressions of a group of Kansas teacher/writers.

Read and enjoy!

Dennis J. Kear, SCKWP Director

and

Jeff Roper, SCKWP Assistant Director